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1. the quality of writing has improved both on the part of certain individuals and in the forum as a whole;

2. the level of seriousness has increased;

3. threads are becoming more focused with significantly less tendency to wander - especially into nonsense;

4. leadership has evolved in various topic areas;

5. the quality of self-policing is as least as good today as it has ever been.

irving,

I agree with Derick. I am also not sure how long you've been around, but this has always been a place with good info. and knowledgable members. The numbers have increased, for sure, but the quality of the posts has remained consistent, IMHO.

We may also be in danger of making this place more important than it really is. It has its place, yes, and I enjoy it and its members, many of whom I consider friends - but it is only a message board.

I agree with Rich. I don't see any difference in the "quality of writing by certain individuals" or in the level of seriousness going on today than was present from the beginning. I don't even agree that the goal should be "more seriousness". There's nothing wrong with things heading into "nonsense" some of the time - some of the best information to come out of these threads has come as a result of some "nonsense". And I don't think we need to change how we do things, one reason having just hit me as I read the last few posts.

Who decides what is "nonsense"? Who decides what is "serious"? Who decides what is "good writing"? No offense Irving, but what one person sees as "good writing" someone else may not see it. Likewise, what someone sees as "bad writing" may in fact be some of the best writing posted that day. You cannot reach that point through machinations. One person may feel that a dry, civil, calm, subtle, nonconfrontational manner of writing is the preferred style, and that a blunt agressive style that cuts to the chase is a bad style of writing. The only problem with that is that others may find the reverse to be true.

There is only one way - the way Frank has *always* done it, which is, other than the expected requirements to keep things as civil and decent as possible, to just stay out of the way and let group dynamics shake it all out.

As Rich has said so well, this forum is important, but it's just a forum. It isn't the hub on which the entire piano industry revolves. It offers a lot of things, and it accomplishes what it accomplishes because of the vast array of participants, their style of participation, their personalities. No matter who you are or how you post, there will be people who like what and how you say things, and people who don't. Creativity, originality, digging out the truth, these things all come from what I call "green light thinking" - just let it flow. "Red light thinking" is when you don't express yourself because limits are placed on how or what you can say (I'm not talking about limits on socially unacceptable behavior).

The only real problem I have is the fact that dealers, salesmen, distributors, manufacturers maybe too, apparently lurk here reading posts for the purpose of scoping out potential sales. There is no way to stop it except for those contacted by them to report it here publicly. But when someone is caught doing it, I think they should be put through the wringer for it, and publicly.

Other than that, we need to stop trying to "control" things and just let it happen. This place wouldn't be worth squat if all the information was dry and encyclopedic in how it gets presented. Humor, sarcasm, human faults and strengths showing, anger, these are all a valid and needed part of the overall dynamics of this forum.

Life isn't measured by the breaths you take. Life is measured by the things that left you breathless

We may also be in danger of making this place more important than it really is.

How important, really, is this forum?

In one respect--in the 3-dimensional reality of man and animals, cities and forests--it barely exists at all. Megabytes, pixels, binary bits...how real is that?

In another respect, its importance exists only in the minds and hearts and imaginations of its devoted, enthusiastic members...purely an arbitrary determination.

But in another context, the importance of this forum so intrudes upon real life that now and then it dangerously threatens the profitablity of somebody's piano business--so much so, that a pack of ravenous, snarling lawyers are sent chasing after Frank.

So I think maybe it's the opposite: we may be in danger of making this place LESS important than it really is--especially if we lay down our arms and walk away without a fight every time some peevish bully reveals his nether quarters.

It seems that my guesses as to what your perceptions about this forum would be were off-target. No problem here; my guesses about things like this are often wrong. However, the only way to learn what people know or believe or perceive is to ask. What about the ill-advised, immature, dishonest and generally contemptible folks who are of concern to Jimbo? Were they always no more than just a manageable nuisance? If so, great. The important point that we do seem to agree on is that, as Larry says, “we need to stop trying to "control" things and just let it happen”. I wasn’t so sure about this when this thread began.

When people make threats, we’re forced to consider things that we hadn’t considered before. We’ve done this and the process has been instructive. And the consensus that has developed is reassuring.

As to Rich’s assertion that this is just a message board that is not so important, I appreciate the sentiment. It shouldn’t be so important. But from what I’ve seen (the way almost everyone in the industry follows the forum; the number of piano buyers that I have personally known to have been greatly influenced by what is written here; the speed and the passion with which objectionable behavior is spotlighted and denounced), I have to agree with Jimbo. This forum is important and influential and this should be recognized.

Now for something really important. It's absolutely gorgeous outside and we're finally free for the day. Time to go for a nice long bike ride. I'll check back in later tonight. This thread is a good one.

As are we, Frank. And you *should* be proud of it. Please don't take our comments to mean we (I'm sure I can speak for Rich as well) intended to trivialize the forums. Far from it. If we didn't think the forums served an extremely valuable service, many of us probably wouldn't participate as much, or care so much, or spend so much effort helping keep the information received here as accurate as we can. But we do, which proves we see its value.

What makes this forum *work* is the free exchange. It produces discussion, bringing many opinions into the mix, and eventually what once was cloudy and distorted begins to take on focus. That very process is happening right here in this thread.

Life isn't measured by the breaths you take. Life is measured by the things that left you breathless

Originally posted by piqué:irving, your story about the piano teacher who changed her hammers has me very intrigued. why, if the old hammers were intact, didn't she just put them back on? and does she like the rebuilt grotrian better than her former piano with either set of hammers?

Piqué,

I don't always understand the motivations behind the things that some people do. I can speculate, so long as you understand that my speculations are often wrong (e.g., see my last few posts in this thread).

I've noticed that among the thousands of piano customers that we've seen over the years, a few have peculiar responses to the sounds of the pianos that they are reviewing. In at least some of these cases, I know that the peculiar responses are attributable to a hearing disorder such as tinnitus. In some other cases, I suspect that this is the case. Sometimes, the hearing disorder is such that some pianos sound fine to the person at certain times but not others. And a given piano can switch from sounding great to sounding terrible as the result of a change in tuning, voicing, humidity, piano placement, proximity to something that vibrates sympathetically etc. etc.

One problem that we have with some people is that they are not aware (or would not admit) that they may have such a hearing disorder and we don't feel comfortable in suggesting it. If the piano teacher happens to have such a problem, that would explain her hammer and piano switches and also explain why replacing the original hammers would serve her no purpose. When a client reveals to us that he or she has such a problem, we can often solve (or minimize) the problem (at least with regard to the piano) by addressing the various things that affect piano sound. Voicing a piano down often does the trick; moving the piano to another room has also been a successful solution.

As to how well the piano teacher likes the rebuilt Grotrian, I don't know. If my speculation above is correct, she may love it - but she also may hate it.

irving,i have never heard of such a thing. i thought just some people have more acutely sensitive hearing than others. (i count myself among them, and can identify with the lady's frustrations.)

how would one know if one has a hearing disorder? is having incredibly acute hearing considered a disorder?

btw, i happen to be married to someone who is partially deaf and cannot hear higher frequencies that most of us readily hear. when i complain about my piano (as i am highly sensitive to the changes caused by humidity shifts or unisons going out) he suggests that i take up a combination of trap and skeet shooting and logging using a chainsaw. he promises me that i will no longer have complaints about my piano in short order--i won't be able to tell the difference!

and sometimes, in my more frustrated moments, i think this wouldn't be such a bad idea.....

one more question: when one decides to replace a set of hammers on a piano, should one expect that the resulting personality of the piano will be an unknown, even if the identical type of hammers are used? or should one expect that the personality will remain intact if the new hammers are voiced appropriately?

Originally posted by piqué:[b] irving, your story about the piano teacher who changed her hammers has me very intrigued. why, if the old hammers were intact, didn't she just put them back on? and does she like the rebuilt grotrian better than her former piano with either set of hammers?

Piqué,

I don't always understand the motivations behind the things that some people do. I can speculate, so long as you understand that my speculations are often wrong (e.g., see my last few posts in this thread).

I've noticed that among the thousands of piano customers that we've seen over the years, a few have peculiar responses to the sounds of the pianos that they are reviewing. In at least some of these cases, I know that the peculiar responses are attributable to a hearing disorder such as tinnitus. In some other cases, I suspect that this is the case. Sometimes, the hearing disorder is such that some pianos sound fine to the person at certain times but not others. And a given piano can switch from sounding great to sounding terrible as the result of a change in tuning, voicing, humidity, piano placement, proximity to something that vibrates sympathetically etc. etc.

One problem that we have with some people is that they are not aware (or would not admit) that they may have such a hearing disorder and we don't feel comfortable in suggesting it. If the piano teacher happens to have such a problem, that would explain her hammer and piano switches and also explain why replacing the original hammers would serve her no purpose. When a client reveals to us that he or she has such a problem, we can often solve (or minimize) the problem (at least with regard to the piano) by addressing the various things that affect piano sound. Voicing a piano down often does the trick; moving the piano to another room has also been a successful solution.

As to how well the piano teacher likes the rebuilt Grotrian, I don't know. If my speculation above is correct, she may love it - but she also may hate it. [/b]

Irving,

My experience has been similar. There are certainly times when a new set of hammers, properly hung and voiced will make a big improvement, even in a new high-end piano, but usually it is at the suggestion of a tech who is less familiar with how to work with the existing hammer and/or piano.

We have also had customers with hearing aids who insisted on having certain frequencies voiced out of certain notes, only to change their hearing aid brand and/ or setting and have us go through the same process on other notes. We usually can make the client as happy as they are able to be under the circumstances, but we then hope nobody else hears the instrument.

The clients who aren't aware of their hearing problems can be very difficult, compounded by their ever growing frustration related to something they can't identify. We usually refer these folks to Faust-Harrison .

FWIW, I have several friends who are extraordinary pianists, with perfect pitch, who can hear a humming birds wings flapping 1000 feet away, who never get their pianos tuned or voiced. They hear everything possible, but are concentrating so hard on the music that none of the hideous sounds created by their piano matter. Yet when we are preparing a piano for them for a concert or recording, they are the most hyper-sensitive, demanding, and critical clients imaginable. I guess my point is that different folks are more or less sensitive to different sounds in different situations. I am sure you have had moments when you were so cought up in your practicing, that the piano almost dissapeared. That is when you are really getting somewhere.With that, everybody's thresholds for distraction are different.

keith,i understand what you are saying, and i have definitely had the experience you describe, of being so focused on the music that the piano's deficiencies are of little moment.

i don't mind unpleasantness that results from unisons being out or humidity shifts. i usually know what those are and just take them in stride. if the lady changed her hammers for those reasons, i think that is really unfortunate.

as for new hammers not being really necessary if one has an experienced tech, we all know how very difficult it can be to find a talented voicer. i wonder how common and how often unnecessary this recommendation is?

Originally posted by piqué: irving,i have never heard of such a thing. i thought just some people have more acutely sensitive hearing than others. (i count myself among them, and can identify with the lady's frustrations.)

how would one know if one has a hearing disorder? is having incredibly acute hearing considered a disorder?

one more question: when one decides to replace a set of hammers on a piano, should one expect that the resulting personality of the piano will be an unknown, even if the identical type of hammers are used? or should one expect that the personality will remain intact if the new hammers are voiced appropriately?

piqué:

I don't consider acutely sensitive hearing to be a disorder - a mixed blessing perhaps, but not a disorder. A person with acutely sensitive hearing may be highly demanding with regard to requiring certain sound elements from a piano, but once those elements are found the person can be quite happy (so long as the piano is reasonably well maintained). The person with a hearing pathology of the type both Keith and I have witnessed is another matter entirely. With such a person, we often can't hear the piano sounds that annoy them. When we do hear them they tend not to be unpleasant to us; they are almost never an issue for most other people - including people, like Sara, who have the most acutely sensitive hearing.

The difficulty for the piano dealer is that a piano that seems perfect to such a person when she finally buys it, can become intolerable to her when it arrives in her home or after it has been in her home for a few weeks or a few months. A tuning or a re-voicing, a change in the weather or a change in the position of the piano almost always solves the problem, but it is a difficult process because the tech working on it either can't hear it or hears something that he or she knows is normal and acceptable to most people. The piano teacher who had her hammers changed did not consult us or the dealer who had sold her the piano before she changed the hammers. I suspect that she was embarrassed to do so. Had she consulted us, I'm sure that we could have resolved her sound issues without changing the hammers.

Regarding your question about whether a fundamental change would occur to the sound of a piano if its hammers are replaced with an identical set, the answer is sometimes it would and sometimes it wouldn't. If you're replacing a new set of Renner blue hammers with another set of Renner blues and the voicer knows what he's doing, you can be pretty sure that the personality of the piano can be maintained with very little change, if any. However, if you're replacing a new set of Steinway hammers with another new set of Steinway hammers and the tech isn't a superstar, the change in the sound of the piano might be small or large or anything in between.

P.S. This was an important thread that stayed pretty much on topic until we sidetracked (hijacked?) it. Should we start another thread?

Originally posted by irving:...I've noticed that among the thousands of piano customers that we've seen over the years, a few have peculiar responses to the sounds of the pianos that they are reviewing. In at least some of these cases, I know that the peculiar responses are attributable to a hearing disorder such as tinnitus....

Irving, you have struck a familiar chord!

When I was a child, I played the piano and the violin. If I played the violin when my father was home, I had to play in the basement. This wasn't as terrible as it might sound, since the basement was warm and well-lighted, but I only learned later that some frequencies set up by playing in third or fifth position set off a sympathetic jangling in his ear that he found almost unbearable.

I am now 66, and for the past year or more have suffered from tinnitus, a constant sound in both ears that I experience as a combination of a hiss and a high-pitched shriek. The specialist I saw told me that tinnitus often accompanies a developing hearing loss.

I went to the specialist because I sometimes misunderstood words on radio or television -- hearing a commercial for the Pontiac Vibe, for example, I thought that the speaker said Pontiac Five -- but so far have not had the problem in face-to-face communication or over the telephone. And, like my late father, I now find that some high-frequency sounds set off a sympathetic jangling in one of my ears that can be uncomfortable.

It rarely happens when I play the piano, but if it were to occur I think that I would know not to call the tuner the first time it happened!

FWIW, I have several friends who are extraordinary pianists, with perfect pitch, who can hear a humming birds wings flapping 1000 feet away, who never get their pianos tuned or voiced. They hear everything possible, but are concentrating so hard on the music that none of the hideous sounds created by their piano matter.

Keith, that's very interesting. The great nineteenth century Russian pianist Anton Rubinstein lived in a hotel. His grand piano there was usually out of tune, but according to the reports he was always "serenely indifferent." This attitude of the master strikes me as extremely helpful, although perhaps not easy for one to talk oneself into.

BTW, I was surprised to learn that AR made an extensive American tour.

what you MEAN you have to be careful what you post in this forum about other piano dealer. by the way, this is a free country and i will say what in the heck i want, especially if that dealer done me wrong. i'll tell the world about it [i might even give your name so that people are less likely to buy anything from you.] if you want to sue me, then COME ON. BRING IT ON. i don't know about the rest of you, but i'm not afraid of anyone who threatens to sue me for slander b/c i exposed them for who they are. but at the same time i can understand why some members in this forum would prefer to keep the dealer's name [whether private or commercial] undisclosed is b/c they don't wanna get their pants sued off for 'bad-mouthing' or 'personally' attacking their buisiness, making them lose money. well, i could careless. besides, i don't use my real name anyway when i roam this forum so i can remain anonymous if i want. moreover, most of my personal info is unaccessible for security reasons and i don't post pics of myself, so no one knows what i look like. but if anyone has a good memory and if there are identifiying details in the story the the store clerk can identify and sue that person. but nevertheless, if i was mistreated by a certain dealer, [like i have been on a coupla occasions] the i'll tell the world, even if it gets me in trouble. NOTE: if this post comes off as offensive or immature, then i apologize. i just won't cowtow to anyone b/c someone says so or threatens me. that's why i signed up here to start with; to freely express my opinions with anonymity and my love for the greatest instrument of all time: the piano. i truly believe that your opinion can change things. and alas, a little threat of lawsuit won't shake me. sorry for such a long post. -Alicia*

I agree that if ever we have complains about certain companies it should be discuss in the open and since this is a forum those concerns are likewise given the opportunity to air their side of the story to clear the issue as well as their name in the process.

A few years back, I saw a TV news magazine show (60 minutes?). They did a show on a lawyer who was sue happy. The lawyer even had the neighborhood up in arms. Suing neighbors because their kids made noise when they played outside. They just didn't have the money to fight that lawyer for such things. The show obviously challenged the lawyer to come against their lawyers and freedom of speech. Perhaps you could contact such a show and see if they want to do the same on lawyers and public forums?

I'm sure places like Yahoo have a bunch of this stuff. There are tons of discussion groups everywhere. Perhaps forming a discussion forum association? Then the association can find a firm who specializes in such things?

Have you considered counter suing for a frivolous lawsuit? The lawyer wasting your money on nothing? The lawyer is a lawyer, he/she should know the law already. Reporting the lawyer to the bar association?

One of my favorite comedy websites gets "sued" quite often by people who try to use legal threats as intimidation. They usually respond with silly emails or ignore it completely. So far it seems to be working quite well for them. Although... that's a pretty risky approach if you're not absolutely sure of your rights in the matter.

It's utterly ridiculous to think of not being able to criticize a company for its poor products and/or services.

I copy our attorny on every threat, and let him decide the best course of action.Often it's just a matter of me sending a knock it off or we will counter-sue email.However, I prefer to be covered just in case.

I'm new here, and I had no idea you were having legal problems in the forums. I shouldn't be surprised, considering the desperate times dealers have been having selling pianos. Desperate people do desperate things.

What have you decided to do? I skipped a few pages to get to the latest bits so please forgive me if I make you repeat yourself.

And as an aside, that attorney who sent you a cease & desist letter via email was just fishing and trying to bully you, or was just a moron. You can't serve legal documents via email. It's too easy for the recipient to claim they did not get it, or read it. Every attorney knows that, unless they're stupid. They have to build up a paper trail in order to show cause at the preliminary hearing. If they can't prove that you were properly served, there's no basis to sue and the judge will throw it out. The complainant also has to show they made a good faith effort to contact you and performed due diligence to settle the matter outside of court, according to the legal definitions of those things in your home state, not the complainant's. Or there's no suit. If you actually get to court on something so flimsy, your attorney can make a motion to countersue for damages and court costs right then at the preliminary hearing. At least, you can in California! Ask you lawyer about the maneuver before you try it it in your state, though.

One thing you can do about that attorney is to contact his local State Bar office and ask if he is a member in good standing. A lawyer can be sanctioned and even disbarred by their local if they abuse courts just to bully people. I think if you called his local office and told them he sent you a cease & desist via email, they'd all have a good laugh.

No, I'm not an attorney and (caveat) I am not giving you legal advice as I'm not licensed to. But my day job has brought me to court many times, and I have had to sue a few people to get them to pay me like they said they would. So this is just my experience talking as a lay businessman.